foxnews.com Thursday, January 30, 2003

NEW YORK  — Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) on Thursday said quarterly profit rose by more than 50 percent, as sharply higher oil and gas prices helped fuel better-than-expected results.

Exxon Mobil, the world's No. 1 publicly-traded oil company, saw benchmark oil prices rise by more than 40 percent from the previous year's quarter alongside fears of a potential war in Iraq and a labor strike in Venezuela, one of the largest crude exporters in the world.

The company's fourth-quarter net income rose to $4.09 billion, or 60 cents a share, as a result, jumping 53 percent from the $2.68 billion, or 39 cents a share, it reported for the year-ago quarter.

Excluding special items, the Irving, Texas company reported earnings per share of 56 cents, or 6 cents higher than the Thomson First Call consensus estimate. Revenue jumped 18 percent to $56.21 billion.

Shares of Exxon Mobil, a component of the Dow Jones industrial average, were up 1.7 percent Thursday morning, after rising almost 10 percent during the fourth quarter.

But while the rally in oil prices lifted its exploration and production division's profit by 73 percent to $3 billion, it took a toll on the company's refining and marketing and chemicals businesses, which use crude as a key raw material.

"It was pretty clearly a strong quarter, though I don't think it's indicative of a company firing on all cylinders," said Tyler Dann, an analyst at Banc of America Securities who rates the company a "neutral" and doesn't own any shares.

"I think chemicals could clearly do better and even the downstream, you could argue, might do better down the road."

Downstream, or refining and marketing, earnings fell 19 percent to $821 million, reflecting weaker industrywide conditions.

Refiners struggled through last year as high inventories of products such as jet fuel and gasoline hurt profit margins. Companies such as Exxon Mobil, which not only produce oil, but refine it into products such as gasoline to be sold at retail stations, are banking on a turnaround this year.

Banc of America's Dann is one of the industry-watchers that believes the refining and marketing business may improve in 2003.

"We think that this company's leverage to that is significant, especially outside the United States," he said. "It just so happens that they have a more balanced asset portfolio between exploration and production, downstream and chemicals."

The chemicals business posted a 64 percent drop in earnings to $76 million, on worldwide margins that fell because of higher costs for oil, gas and other raw materials.

Shares of Exxon Mobil rose 56 cents, or 1.7 percent, to $34.41 in Thursday morning trade on the New York Stock Exchange.

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www.forbes.com Reuters, 01.30.03, 11:54 AM ET By Jane Sutton

MIAMI (Reuters) - War anxiety, rising fuel costs and a fragile U.S. economy have tempered the outlook for a Caribbean tourism industry wobbling toward recovery during the crucial winter vacation season, industry officials said. Fear that the United States could soon be at war in the Middle East -- travel marketing expert Peter Yesawich calls it "Iraq-nophobia" -- is keeping some would-be travelers home and prompting others to wait until the last minute to book trips. The balmy Caribbean islands, whose $34 billion-a-year visitor industry depends heavily on air travel from the eastern United States and Europe, took a thrashing after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The World Tourism and Travel Council estimates the region lost more than 364,000 jobs as a result -- a significant chunk in a region where travel and tourism accounts for more than 14 percent of GDP and employs 2.1 million workers, or about one in seven. In some islands, like the Bahamas, tourism generates more than half the jobs and economic activity. Industry officials expect final numbers for 2002 to show visitor arrivals down by 5 to 10 percent from 2001 regionwide. But by the end of the year, vacationers had begun to trickle back to the beaches and casinos, albeit with heavily discounted air fares and hotel rates that cut into industry profits. "We began to see a recovery that began to look really quite promising by the end of 2002," Jean Holder, secretary general of the Caribbean Tourism Organization, said from the group's headquarters in Barbados. Cuba and the Dominican Republic saw resurgences. Puerto Rico's hotel occupancy rate rose to 73 percent for the year, up from 70 percent in 2001 but still a couple of points below pre-Sept. 11 levels, Holder said. Air Jamaica's passenger count rose by 5 percent last year and its tour operation, Air Jamaica Vacations, has seen an 11 percent boost in bookings so far in 2003, said Allen Chastenet, the airline's vice president of marketing and sales, who also chairs the Caribbean Hotel Association's marketing committee. The gains augured well for the winter high season, when travelers normally flock to the Caribbean to escape the cold. "Any real money that is going to be made in the industry, we certainly expect to make that in the winter," Holder said. But overall bookings lag, with many reservations still coming in less than a month before travel. "While we would normally have seen everything very much in place for February, February is probably the strongest month in the Caribbean, to date that is not the case," Holder said. "We are not despondent but ... we are certainly going into 2003 with a continued state of uncertainty." "Overhanging the whole thing is the uncertainty caused by the threat of war." Energy costs have hit two-year highs amid twitchiness over a potential war in Iraq and a political strike that has choked supplies from Venezuela. Weak economies in the United States and Germany, a traditionally strong market, have pushed revenues down. Airlines have cut fares by 20 percent and more, and hotels are discounting room rates by as much as 35 percent though mostly not at the top luxury resorts. "There's a lot of deal-making going on," said Yesawich, president of Yesawich, Pepperdine, Brown and Russell, an Orlando marketing services company specializing in the travel industry. "The forecast from a consumer point of view is, if you put the time and effort into trying to find a great deal, you'll probably be rewarded." Generally, destinations faring best are the bigger ones in the northern part of the region, which have the best air access -- Puerto Rico, the Bahamas and the Dominican Republic. La Romana and Punta Cana in eastern Dominican Republic have thrived by courting European charter business. "Punta Cana is sold out until March. That's 17,000 rooms on the east coast," Yesawich said. Curacao and the British Virgin Islands, which aggressively recruit European travelers, also saw increases in overnight stays at their hotels in 2002. "The strongman in Europe has been the United Kingdom, which has continued to produce (visitors)," Holder said. Some islands have benefited as cruise lines divert ships from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean to draw U.S. passengers who feel safer closer to home and can drive to U.S. ports of departure. But while cruise passengers account for about one-tenth of the Caribbean's tourism revenue, they spend less than other visitors because they sleep and dine aboard ship. "What we need to do is to make sure that more of the people who come here first on cruises come back and stay in our countries," Holder said. In the meantime, the Caribbean visitor industry is ratcheting up promotional efforts. Hotels, airlines and credit card companies have joined forces with island governments and tourist boards under the auspices of the Caribbean Hotel Association Charitable Trust to launch a $16 million regional marketing plan. TV commercials with the tag line "Life needs the Caribbean," began airing in U.S. markets in August, juxtaposing hectic urban scenes against tranquil shots of palm-fringed islands. The ads returned to the U.S. airwaves in January as the snow piled up in much of the nation. The trust also runs a one-stop booking service through the Web site www.gocaribbean.com. Tourism boards on individual islands have also boosted advertising, some highlighting the islands as a place of calm in a troubled world, others targeting special-interest travelers, festivals or unique attractions. Jamaica is hosting "Bob Marley Week" on Feb. 2-8, paying homage to the late reggae icon with a series of concerts tied with Black History Month celebrations. The tiny British island of Montserrat, which saw its airport destroyed and half its population flee after the Soufriere Hills volcano roared to life in 1995, is promoting tours of the volcano, which still sends spectacular showers of ash and super-heated rocks tumbling into surrounding valleys. Trinidad is inviting revelers to join the Caribbean's biggest Carnival celebration, March 2-4. Steel drum bands and calypso dancers jam Port of Spain to compete in the rummy annual gala. "You're going to see a very aggressive marketing campaign from the trade" Chastenet said. "I think that the consumer is still going to benefit from good value."

new.vheadline.com

I would like to present VHeadline readers with commentaries on the Venezuelan political situation, hoping to transmit the concern of many of my countrymen about the future of our country, for the benefit of those who do not already have a frozen position regarding our political problems.

In this first installment, I would like to list, first of all, the theoretical components of totalitarian regimes and of totalitarian leaders. They are mostly taken from literature and I make no claim to being original.

What is Totalitarianism?

Briefly, the exercise of limitless political power, or the attempt at doing that.

A totalitarian regime usually exhibits some of the following characteristics:

Strong Nationalism

Promotion of class struggle

Pronounced Statism

Collectivism prevailing over Individualism

Existence of "myths"  and "religious creeds" as in the Fascist "The Ten Commandments"

Considering the nation as equal to the government and government equal to a Supreme leader

The existence of groups for the defense of the system

A progressive replacement of the professional Army by paramilitary groups, as in Cuba, China and Communist Russia.

In turn the totalitarian leader exhibits some of the following characteristics (after Robert Tucker and Hanna Arendt in "Political Leadership", Univ. Pittsburg, 1986):

The Leader sits at the center of the movement

He survives by spinning intrigues and constantly changing personnel

His will is.... the Law

Remains secure not because his superior gifts about which his inner circle has no illusions but because without him everybody is lost

The Leader does not tolerate criticism

The Leader has the monopoly of explanations therefore seeming to be the only person who knows what he is doing

The Leader is infallible. Therefore he has no need to tell the truth

The totalitarian leader dominates the decision making process

The system rarely survives the Leader.

In addition to these theoretic models, I would like to add some reflections by James MacGregor Burns on what true leadership means:

Leadership is collective. One man leadership is a contradiction in terms since a symbiotic relationship between leader and the whole of society, without exclusion, is required.

Leadership is dissensual. This requires respect for dissenters and the acceptance of conflict

Leadership is causative. It produces events and creates institutions that will survive the Leader.

Leadership is not destructive.

In my second commentary I will try to describe the step by step political involution suffered by the government of Mr. Chavez.

Gustavo Coronel is the founder and president of Agrupacion Pro Calidad de Vida (The Pro-Quality of Life Alliance), a Caracas-based organization devoted to fighting corruption and the promotion of civic education in Latin America, primarily Venezuela. A member of the first board of directors (1975-1979) of Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), following nationalization of Venezuela's oil industry, Coronel has worked in the oil industry for 28 years in the United States, Holland, Indonesia, Algiers and in Venezuela. He is a Distinguished alumnus of the University of Tulsa (USA) where he was a Trustee from 1987 to 1999. Coronel led the Hydrocarbons Division of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) in Washington DC for 5 years. The author of three books and many articles on Venezuela ("Curbing Corruption in Venezuela." Journal of Democracy, Vol. 7, No. 3, July, 1996, pp. 157-163), he is a fellow of Harvard University and a member of the Harvard faculty from 1981 to 1983.  In 1998, he was presidential election campaign manager for Henrique Salas Romer and now lives in retirement on the Caribbean island of Margarita where he runs a leading Hotel-Resort.  You may contact Gustavo Coronel at email ppcvicep@telcel.net.ve

www.vheadline.com Posted: Thursday, January 30, 2003 - 1:41:09 AM By: Almira Atencio

Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 21:44:40 -0400 From: Almira Atencio atencioalmira@hotmail.com To: Editor@VHeadline.com Subject: Re: K.D. Willke and Gustavo Coronel

Dear Editor: Reference K. D. Wilkie's letter directed at Gustavo Coronel(www.vheadline.com). He is absolutely right about the unequal development of the economy of  our country(www.vheadline.com), circumstances that have high incidence in  opportunities for Venezuelan's represented in better  salaries as a right, independent of racial or sex differences.

• Better and qualified  education should be the only measure used to distinguish between one worker and another.

Venezuela's democratic governments have  increased politic instability by wasting public resources in  bureaucracy to dominate power with its own people ... this has led the country to impoverishment and to deny to Constitutent representatives an  appropriate economic plan in order to obtain distribution of the PIB that  would help  solve poverty in our country and to seek economic development.

Chavez approved 49 laws, which were almost all unconstitutional in their articles ... these were the  instruments that would lead him to an  economic plan of development for his revolution for the poor .... he certainly is not taking the path he tells the international community he is ... he does not accept governability principles that are obligations in a democratic country where different interests must be attended to.

The President does protects poor people ... but only those who are  are members of a cooperative group called "Circulos Bolivarianos" (really composed of people who havealways been  members of the socialist group of unemployed people because of its lack of education and by people whose situation is of misery).

The mission of this group  is to protect his revolution ... several from these groups are in prison for killing people in a pacific march on April 11 ... they had guns and they announced to the media that they had to kill everybody because they had to protect revolution.

What is happening in our country?  Because of this, the military said they would not obey the President against civilians. After this, the President renounced. The President's politics,  revolution condemns the state to an absolute domination  of the state, totalitarianism, ideology pragmatism, continuous politic polarization, just like in Cuba. His principle  command  of violence and personal insecurity has misled  him from his  essential mission of the economy.

Our country is considered a high risk for about three years. Capital markets practically do not exist. Enterprises have gone broke. Labor rights have been defended in a clear fight against private enterprises.

Violence is the manual to govern the state. Federal states cannot create work for the regions because the central  state does not want to give them their state budget, just because the governors are not of the revolution.

"Do you still believe the President is doing the correct with us as citizens."  The President will not accept to hear the necessities of organized groups, like the business federation and the strongest trade union in the country.

Education is impossible in this climate and so are equal opportunities.

I would like to offer you Daniel J. Boorstin's opinion from his book: The decline of radicalism: "In the long run, our ability to raise  our American standard  of living will depend on our ability to remove menaces to our health and peace of body and mind , which come from the dissatisfactions and lack of satisfactions of men anywhere.  Equity  in a standard of living society  meant the right  to be educated together with and in the presence of other Americans (everyone has to be benefited)."

The President's plan was good when he sold it to us in 1997: equity for all, opportunities for all. But,  this is not the plan he had in the year 2002.

My respects, Almira Atencio (lawyer specialized in public administration, international finance) atencioalmira@hotmail.com

abcnews.go.com — By Carolyn Koo

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp.<XOM.N> on Thursday said quarterly profit rose by more than 50 percent as sharply higher oil and gas prices helped fuel better-than-expected results.

The hike in energy prices also lifted profit at independent oil and gas producer Apache Corp.<APA.N>, while a large charge erased the benefit of stronger commodity prices at Amerada Hess Corp.<AHC.N>, which posted a quarterly loss.

Exxon Mobil, the world's No. 1 publicly traded oil company, saw benchmark oil prices rise by more than 40 percent from a year earlier amid fears of a potential war in Iraq and as a labor strike hit Venezuela, one of the largest crude exporters in the world.

Net income jumped 53 percent to $4.09 billion, or 60 cents a share, in the fourth quarter from $2.68 billion, or 39 cents a share, a year earlier.

EXXON MOBIL TOPS ESTIMATES

Excluding special items, the Irving, Texas company reported earnings per share of 56 cents, beating the Thomson First Call consensus estimate by 6 cents.

Revenue jumped 18 percent in the fourth quarter to $56.21 billion, although revenue for the year dropped 4 percent to $204.51 billion.

Shares of Exxon Mobil, a component of the Dow Jones industrial average, were up 1 percent Thursday morning, after rising almost 10 percent during the fourth quarter.

While the rally in oil prices lifted Exxon Mobil's exploration and production division's profit by 73 percent to $3 billion, it took a toll on the refining and marketing and chemicals businesses, which use crude as a key raw material.

"It was pretty clearly a strong quarter, though I don't think it's indicative of a company firing on all cylinders," said Tyler Dann, an analyst at Banc of America Securities who rates the company a "neutral" and does not own any shares.

"I think chemicals could clearly do better and even the downstream, you could argue, might do better down the road."

REFINERS STRUGGLED

Downstream, or refining and marketing, earnings fell 19 percent to $821 million, reflecting weaker industrywide conditions.

Refiners struggled through last year as high inventories of products such as jet fuel and gasoline hurt profit margins. Companies such as Exxon Mobil, which not only produce oil, but refine it into products such as gasoline to be sold at retail stations, are banking on a turnaround this year.

Banc of America's Dann believes the refining and marketing business may improve in 2003.

"We think that this company's leverage to that is significant, especially outside the United States," he said. "It just so happens that they have a more balanced asset portfolio between exploration and production, downstream and chemicals."

The chemicals business posted a 64 percent drop in earnings to $76 million, on worldwide margins that fell because of higher costs for oil, gas and other raw materials.

PRODUCTION FLAT

Oil and gas production for the quarter was flat versus a year ago, as the contribution from new projects was wiped out by natural field declines and OPEC quota restrictions.

Houston-based Apache's quarterly profit more than doubled from a year-ago to $179.4 million, or $1.24 a share. Amerada Hess, based in New York, reported a loss of $371 million, or $4.20 a share, reversing a prior-year profit, because of the write-down of a key oilfield in Equatorial Guinea.

Shares of Exxon Mobil rose 35 cents, or 1 percent, to $34.20 in Thursday morning trade on the New York Stock Exchange. Meanwhile, shares of Apache were up 64 cents, or 1 percent, to $61.38 and shares of Amerada Hess dropped $3.96. or more than 7 percent, to $52.32.